Five held hostage at rural Virginia post office...

December 24, 2009

Five held hostage at rural Virginia post office Negotiators were trying Wednesday night to coax an armed man into releasing five hostages from a post office in a rural, mountain town in western Virginia. A negotiator asked SWAT members, police and others surrounding the building Wednesday in Wytheville to be quiet because authorities were talking with the unidentified suspect. State police said an officer delivered food and drink to the front door of the post office. They say the suspect requested it. Police said in a press release that the man entered pushing a wheelchair but the purpose of the chair is not known. Shots were fired earlier, but there were no reports of injuries. Relatives say the hostages have been able to contact them by phone. Jimmy Carter sends letter of apology to Israel ATLANTA (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter apologized for any words or deeds that may have upset the Jewish community in an open letter meant to improve an often-tense relationship. He said he was offering an Al Het, a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. It signifies a plea for forgiveness. "We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Carter said in the letter, which was first sent to JTA, a wire service for Jewish newspapers, and provided Wednesday to The Associated Press. "As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." Carter outraged many Jews with his 2006 book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." Critics contend he unfairly compared Israeli treatment of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza to the legalized racial oppression that once existed in South Africa. Israeli leaders have also shunned him over his journey to Gaza to meet with Hamas, considered a terror group by the U.S., the European Union and Israel. Iranian unrest spreads to hard-liners' power base TEHRAN, Iran (LAT) -- Large-scale protests spread across central Iranian cities Wednesday, offering the starkest evidence yet that the opposition movement that emerged from the disputed June presidential election has expanded beyond its base of mostly young, educated Tehran residents to at least some segments of the country's pious heartland. Demonstrations on Wednesday took place in cities including the provincial capital of Esfahan, Iran's cultural center, and nearby Najafabad, the birthplace and hometown of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, whose death on Saturday triggered the latest round of confrontations between the opposition movement and the government. Second Irish bishop resigns in investigation of abuse DUBLIN (AP) -- A second Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland announced Wednesday he will resign in the wake of a damning investigation into decades of church cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. Bishop Jim Moriarty revealed his decision to priests and other church officials in his diocese of Kildare and Leithlin, southwest of Dublin. Church officials said Moriarty planned to travel soon to Rome to tender his resignation. Last week Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick resigned, becoming the first high-profile casualty of a government-ordered probe into the church's failure to tell authorities about more than 170 suspected child abusers.